strongly conversation of wind
I am of two minds about the dearth of snow this winter. On the one hand, aside from wanting one big snow, the kind of snow that stops the commute, closes the school, allows the dog to romp in ridiculous ways in the deep drifts, allows the boys to climb on top of the small mountain of snow that the plows push to the corner of Curve Street and Hart Farm Road, I am content without the heavy snows, content with my specific, Tracy Brown worries about slipping on the walkway, or driving through snowstorms, or losing power and sleeping on the couch in front of the fire, in the dark night. On the other hand: the earth. There seem to be competing names for the psychological disorder marked by anxiety and depression about the plight of the planet--eco-anxiety, climate anxiety, or my favorite, climate grief. The twins have homework this February vacation--a project on the Iditarod where they map out the race and pick a musher to follow during the race. The cosmic question of how long such a race like the Iditarod can keep identifying enormous continuous stretches of snow and ice on our warming planet is not a question posed to the second graders in Carlisle.
Over the holidays, my older children showed up in spades.
I was sent to MGH on Christmas Eve to begin a course of radiation to relieve building pressure and pain in my spine where the cancer had progressed. Two people were there that night--the head of the Radiology Department and a nurse wearing a reindeer headband--apparently they had drawn or volunteered for the short straws. The rest of the times I went in, the waiting rooms were filled with people--many of them grew familiar over the next two weeks. My sister said to me in a hushed whisper, "We are not getting to a first-name basis with these people." What she meant was, no, this can't be our new reality--all of these exhausted, older folks in wheelchairs.
On Christmas Eve, the reindeer nurse brightly told me they had Pandora, and I could pick whatever song I wanted. I asked for Stairway to Heaven. From then on, I tried to pick darkly humorous songs: Girlfriend in a Coma by the Smiths, Fade to Black by Amy Winehouse. I kept waiting for the attendants (who remained the same throughout the days) to notice, to say, hey what's with the creepy songs? But that kind of humor doesn't fly in the radiation room. It was strictly a joke to amuse myself. When you finish radiation, you get to ring a bell on the way out--it sounds like a cowbell, you anticipate a horse-drawn wagon to careen through the hall--and all the waiting people raise their heads and politely clap for you.
At any rate, I was behind in getting ready for the holidays because of the pain and fatigue that eventually landed me at MGH, and when I disappeared on Christmas Eve, the big kids, as I call them, stepped up and in. They wrapped presents, stuffed stockings, made the risotto, drank the apple moonshine I had made in my instant pot (gifted to me by my nanny) and bottled up in mason jars tied with red ribbons. Somehow I had made time for that. The way in which my family pulled together over the holidays--my sister driving me to MGH and looking askance at my friendliness to strangers, my mother bringing the Hanukkah socks to our house when we missed the Hanukkah party at her house (Kyle's socks: Trust Me, I'm a Lawyer embroidered down the side), the twins cleaving to their brothers' and sisters' sides--made me feel dispensable, in a good way. As my therapist put it, as if the kids had already absorbed me and could walk forward in life with me internalized.
My metastatic support group continues to fondly and sadly let go of fellow travelers. When we heard one of our own had died, we all thought: who amongst us is next? Of course we did. Soon it will be my name over which the group is clucking: wasn't she nice? Didn't she bake a mean scone? Of course we thought that way--we all do. I used to read the obituaries--oh, 95, that's good. Oh, 51, but he had Lou Gehrig's Disease and I don't. I don't read the obituaries anymore, although I will confess to skimming celebrity death stories for the mention of cancer. I have now officially lived past the expiration date they stamped on me when I was diagnosed. We all know milk is good for a time after the expiration date, though, don't we? I don't particularly feel like I'm going anywhere anytime soon, but by that I mean in the next three months. But I am calm. Really, pretty calm.
We had the plague sweep through the house last week--Kim, the beloved nanny, Kyle, and the boys all got a virus going around. (During which time we purchased a new thermometer: The first bullet point under how to use your thermometer was: Please make sure that the device will be used in the room only and there is no strongly conversation of wind. I found this beautiful). I have to say, there was some good cuddling and good movie watching. One morning, after one of the boys threw up in the night, I was hauling the steam cleaner upstairs to clean the carpet (they are not expensive, and so worth it). I paused, and asked the two feverish boys on the couch if they knew what I was doing. "No." "I'm going upstairs to steam clean the carpet where Eli threw up," I said. "Someday you might be dads and you will have to do this." (I was trying to create a memory to stand in for the fact that I won't be there as a grandmother to say 'what comes around goes around'). Asher didn't miss a beat: "Not me. I'm going to be at work."
I was so surprised by his calm, assured answer that it took me a minute to sputter out: "Well, sometimes it happens at night, or on the weekend."
The turn of the year meant that my health insurance through my job ran its course, for various reasons, so the kids and I went on Kyle's insurance--some of the details, too boring and harrowing all at the same time, mean that the medical bills are appearing fast and furious right now. Do you think I will worry about money every single day of the rest of my life, I half-kiddingly asked Kyle. Or do you think there will be a few days, or a week, when I am so out of it that I don't worry about it? On my actual deathbed, will I be thinking, oy, I don't know how they are going to pay for this funeral? I was talking with my friend, Robin, who has stage four breast cancer, and it occurred to me, wait, why am I so sure the money anxiety stops at death? What if I go to heaven, still worrying about this? Maybe I will be a waitress in heaven, just trying to make ends meet, bringing flat whites and vanilla milkshakes to the angels. Seems just as likely as lions cuddling with lambs.
To temper my self-centeredness, there is the worry about the election and the world. My mother and I meet for lunch and torture ourselves about whom to back in the primary, about whatever the daily news is about the end of the United States of America. The yellowjackets in France had posters that read: "You're worried about the end of the earth; we're worried about the end of the month." It's in tension, to say the least.
The forest animals are on the move in Carlisle. The snow in the fields is low and spotty, so perhaps it is less that they are on the move especially, and more that we can see more this year. But it feels as if they are on the move. We saw the family of five deer that eat the fallen corn in the field to the left of our house in our backyard the other late afternoon. Sebby lost his mind barking at an animal in the field across the street from the house that Elijah and I thought was first a coyote, then a wolf, then a deer. We really couldn't tell. I slept in the spare bedroom during the week when everyone but me seemed contagious, and every night I heard the whoo, whoo, whoo of an owl. I mentioned it to Asher one morning, and he, whose room is on the spare bedroom side, away from our bedroom, said, "Oh, I hear that every night."
What a gift that is.
I went to a funeral two weeks ago--it was a Catholic funeral and of course I experienced that outsiderness--that jarred sense that you have no idea even how to pretend to belong--that one experiences when going into a house of worship unlike the one you grew up in, if you even ever did.
People knew when to kneel, when to reach out to one another, what to pray in response to the priest, when to bow their heads, how to take communion. I was enthralled--the priest's homily was beautiful, the assuredness with which he comforted the mourning and, casting his arms towards the casket, told us that if we saw death there, we were mistaken, because the woman was alive, now, alive and (literally) with God and Jesus. [As you know, when I went to see my rabbi when I was first diagnosed, he could offer up a willingness to ask the questions with me, but there are no promises of heaven and reunions (or waitressing gigs) in Judaism.] In my awkwardness in the back of that church, I felt a familiar bereft feeling I sometimes have in the presence of others' great faith.
But. To grow up with that owl, whoo-whooing you to sleep, across from a field of deer, surrounded by the hopeless, hopeful, love that pours down on you, embodying and inhabiting the ways of your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother, as you go about your day, slicing bread, toasting bread, spreading apricot jam and butter on bread, and delivering it to your eldest son and his girlfriend, or your youngest son and his baseball cards, that's what I have, and it suffices. It's enough to keep the faith at a low burn, a steady glow from the fireplace. Not a roaring fire, but an the animals are on the move, Aslan is on the move, kind of fire that is like coming home.
Over the holidays, my older children showed up in spades.
I was sent to MGH on Christmas Eve to begin a course of radiation to relieve building pressure and pain in my spine where the cancer had progressed. Two people were there that night--the head of the Radiology Department and a nurse wearing a reindeer headband--apparently they had drawn or volunteered for the short straws. The rest of the times I went in, the waiting rooms were filled with people--many of them grew familiar over the next two weeks. My sister said to me in a hushed whisper, "We are not getting to a first-name basis with these people." What she meant was, no, this can't be our new reality--all of these exhausted, older folks in wheelchairs.
On Christmas Eve, the reindeer nurse brightly told me they had Pandora, and I could pick whatever song I wanted. I asked for Stairway to Heaven. From then on, I tried to pick darkly humorous songs: Girlfriend in a Coma by the Smiths, Fade to Black by Amy Winehouse. I kept waiting for the attendants (who remained the same throughout the days) to notice, to say, hey what's with the creepy songs? But that kind of humor doesn't fly in the radiation room. It was strictly a joke to amuse myself. When you finish radiation, you get to ring a bell on the way out--it sounds like a cowbell, you anticipate a horse-drawn wagon to careen through the hall--and all the waiting people raise their heads and politely clap for you.
At any rate, I was behind in getting ready for the holidays because of the pain and fatigue that eventually landed me at MGH, and when I disappeared on Christmas Eve, the big kids, as I call them, stepped up and in. They wrapped presents, stuffed stockings, made the risotto, drank the apple moonshine I had made in my instant pot (gifted to me by my nanny) and bottled up in mason jars tied with red ribbons. Somehow I had made time for that. The way in which my family pulled together over the holidays--my sister driving me to MGH and looking askance at my friendliness to strangers, my mother bringing the Hanukkah socks to our house when we missed the Hanukkah party at her house (Kyle's socks: Trust Me, I'm a Lawyer embroidered down the side), the twins cleaving to their brothers' and sisters' sides--made me feel dispensable, in a good way. As my therapist put it, as if the kids had already absorbed me and could walk forward in life with me internalized.
My metastatic support group continues to fondly and sadly let go of fellow travelers. When we heard one of our own had died, we all thought: who amongst us is next? Of course we did. Soon it will be my name over which the group is clucking: wasn't she nice? Didn't she bake a mean scone? Of course we thought that way--we all do. I used to read the obituaries--oh, 95, that's good. Oh, 51, but he had Lou Gehrig's Disease and I don't. I don't read the obituaries anymore, although I will confess to skimming celebrity death stories for the mention of cancer. I have now officially lived past the expiration date they stamped on me when I was diagnosed. We all know milk is good for a time after the expiration date, though, don't we? I don't particularly feel like I'm going anywhere anytime soon, but by that I mean in the next three months. But I am calm. Really, pretty calm.
We had the plague sweep through the house last week--Kim, the beloved nanny, Kyle, and the boys all got a virus going around. (During which time we purchased a new thermometer: The first bullet point under how to use your thermometer was: Please make sure that the device will be used in the room only and there is no strongly conversation of wind. I found this beautiful). I have to say, there was some good cuddling and good movie watching. One morning, after one of the boys threw up in the night, I was hauling the steam cleaner upstairs to clean the carpet (they are not expensive, and so worth it). I paused, and asked the two feverish boys on the couch if they knew what I was doing. "No." "I'm going upstairs to steam clean the carpet where Eli threw up," I said. "Someday you might be dads and you will have to do this." (I was trying to create a memory to stand in for the fact that I won't be there as a grandmother to say 'what comes around goes around'). Asher didn't miss a beat: "Not me. I'm going to be at work."
I was so surprised by his calm, assured answer that it took me a minute to sputter out: "Well, sometimes it happens at night, or on the weekend."
The turn of the year meant that my health insurance through my job ran its course, for various reasons, so the kids and I went on Kyle's insurance--some of the details, too boring and harrowing all at the same time, mean that the medical bills are appearing fast and furious right now. Do you think I will worry about money every single day of the rest of my life, I half-kiddingly asked Kyle. Or do you think there will be a few days, or a week, when I am so out of it that I don't worry about it? On my actual deathbed, will I be thinking, oy, I don't know how they are going to pay for this funeral? I was talking with my friend, Robin, who has stage four breast cancer, and it occurred to me, wait, why am I so sure the money anxiety stops at death? What if I go to heaven, still worrying about this? Maybe I will be a waitress in heaven, just trying to make ends meet, bringing flat whites and vanilla milkshakes to the angels. Seems just as likely as lions cuddling with lambs.
To temper my self-centeredness, there is the worry about the election and the world. My mother and I meet for lunch and torture ourselves about whom to back in the primary, about whatever the daily news is about the end of the United States of America. The yellowjackets in France had posters that read: "You're worried about the end of the earth; we're worried about the end of the month." It's in tension, to say the least.
The forest animals are on the move in Carlisle. The snow in the fields is low and spotty, so perhaps it is less that they are on the move especially, and more that we can see more this year. But it feels as if they are on the move. We saw the family of five deer that eat the fallen corn in the field to the left of our house in our backyard the other late afternoon. Sebby lost his mind barking at an animal in the field across the street from the house that Elijah and I thought was first a coyote, then a wolf, then a deer. We really couldn't tell. I slept in the spare bedroom during the week when everyone but me seemed contagious, and every night I heard the whoo, whoo, whoo of an owl. I mentioned it to Asher one morning, and he, whose room is on the spare bedroom side, away from our bedroom, said, "Oh, I hear that every night."
What a gift that is.
I went to a funeral two weeks ago--it was a Catholic funeral and of course I experienced that outsiderness--that jarred sense that you have no idea even how to pretend to belong--that one experiences when going into a house of worship unlike the one you grew up in, if you even ever did.
People knew when to kneel, when to reach out to one another, what to pray in response to the priest, when to bow their heads, how to take communion. I was enthralled--the priest's homily was beautiful, the assuredness with which he comforted the mourning and, casting his arms towards the casket, told us that if we saw death there, we were mistaken, because the woman was alive, now, alive and (literally) with God and Jesus. [As you know, when I went to see my rabbi when I was first diagnosed, he could offer up a willingness to ask the questions with me, but there are no promises of heaven and reunions (or waitressing gigs) in Judaism.] In my awkwardness in the back of that church, I felt a familiar bereft feeling I sometimes have in the presence of others' great faith.
But. To grow up with that owl, whoo-whooing you to sleep, across from a field of deer, surrounded by the hopeless, hopeful, love that pours down on you, embodying and inhabiting the ways of your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother, as you go about your day, slicing bread, toasting bread, spreading apricot jam and butter on bread, and delivering it to your eldest son and his girlfriend, or your youngest son and his baseball cards, that's what I have, and it suffices. It's enough to keep the faith at a low burn, a steady glow from the fireplace. Not a roaring fire, but an the animals are on the move, Aslan is on the move, kind of fire that is like coming home.
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